


1990

by pinkgrapefruit



Series: workplace romance [3]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, Ice Cream, Workplace Romance, i am in love with this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 05:50:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20466053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkgrapefruit/pseuds/pinkgrapefruit
Summary: katya is annoying and trixie just wants to scoop ice cream.[or, santa monica, meeting two]





	1990

**Author's Note:**

> hey! welcome back to the oneshot series where i half write trixie and katya flirting and doing nothing else. tell me what you think and enjoy!

Trixie is desperately in need of a summer job when she stumbles across West’s Two Scoop Ice Cream Emporium run by an older lesbian couple on Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade. She walks down to the store, sweating in the early June heat and clutching her resume which has seen better days (not covered in sea-salt and sweat). As she stands in front of its pastel pink doors, she can’t help but feel like this is the place for her.

It turns out, Nina and Monet desperately need an extra scooper and she is hired on the spot.

She loves it there, close enough to the beach that she can smell the sea mixing with the sweet smell of strawberry icecream without it threatening to ruin her hair. The hours are flexible, the pay is good and the gay flag in the window attracts enough queer people that she is left entertained (and slightly flustered) most of the time. 

She works there pretty much alone (although far from feeling like that) every summer, aged 18 through 23 until it’s 1990 and she walks in for her first shift to find a tall blonde sat on the counter popping gum like it’s her job. Trixie turns away from the new figure for a second to lock the door, the key holding pride of place on her keyring next to her apartment key, a guitar pic holder and a pink, fluffy unicorn plush that takes up half her pocket. When she turns back around, the woman has moved and now leans heavily on the counter, coffee in hand, staring at Trixie like she has somehow deeply offended her. 

“Who are you?” She asks with a level of disgust only acceptable at six in the morning (why an ice cream shop opens so early is a mystery to them both). Trixie should be taken aback but she is too tired and so instead of answering, pulls off her pink anarack to reveal a light periwinkle polo shirt with ‘Trixie’ emblazoned across the back. She secures her name badge on with a self-righteous hmph and returns the question. She tries to imitate the disgust but if it isn’t perfect, who cares?

“Katya,” responds Katya. “I assume Nina didn’t tell you I’d be here?” She knows Nina didn’t - Nina mentioned Trixie but they wouldn’t be going through any of this if she had. 

Trixie shakes her head, smiling at the woman's name. She hurries her belongings back into the tiny locker area in the office. The shop has two small rooms, the first being the mane emporium with a large spread of ice creams as well as a wall lined with sweets and cones and sauces for a perfect sundae. The other room is a box room of sorts, used by Monet as an office space to do all the accounting. Nina had stepped down from working summers with Trixie when she was 21, hiring Kim for two years to fill in the gap until now. The girls had got along like a house on fire but Kim moved to Chicago to work in a makeup store and Trixie got left behind filling in gigs and freelance work with occasionally pulling extra shifts at her now second home. 

Standing behind the counter always gave her such a buzz but today, she felt a little hollow. She was used to running the store how she liked it, being in charge and working on her own but she had a feeling that this Katya wouldn’t be very helpful in achieving this, the girl sat at one of the small tables leaving Trixie to set up around her.

“You have worked an opening before? Haven’t you?” She asks, tentatively because they open in ten minutes and she really doesn't have time to teach. Katya shrugs, downs the rest of her coffee and throws the paper cup haphazardly towards the bin, ducking her head a little when it sprays dregs on the floor. 

“Yeah, but watching your pretty little ass do it is way more fun,” she says with a cocky grin, teeth imprinted on her bottom lip. She ties her half apron around her waist and sets all the tables out properly, much to Trixie's gratitude and as the clock ticks over onto seven o’clock, they flip the door sign to open.

*

“Bitch it’s so cold!”

“It’s ice cream and there are kids around.”

“Okay then, baby it’s fucking freezing.”

“I’m so sorry about her, was that raspberry ripple?”

*

They niggle at each other all day. Trixie takes her first twenty-minute break at ten a.m, leaving Katya to man the scooping while she tries to get rid of her budding headache in the dark office on her own. It turns out that the woman is a lunatic when she thinks Trixie can't hear her, raucous laughter and long-drawn jokes to the kids that come in. It’s almost endearing the way she seems to engage them and Trixie can tell without looking that they’re smiling wider than a banana split.

She still has a headache when she leaves the room and according to Katya, it makes her a bitch.

*

Katya’s break falls exactly when the late morning rush comes in, leading the woman to miss her caffeine fix because Trixie is ‘unreasonably strict about hygiene in the kitchen oh my god can’t I just drink the coffee next to the door’. Trixie would tell her that it’s making her an asshole but it’s not worth it. Plus, she still has a headache.

*

“What’s the worst thing about a hermit crab?”

“Katya, I really don’t care.”

“They’re too shell-fish”

*

They both get an hour off to sort stock and eat lunch between twelve and one. After about twenty minutes, both women end up sat on spinny stools behind the counter, Trixie sipping on a strawberry milkshake and Katya on her double espresso. 

“Why Santa Monica?” Trixie asks between mouthfuls, curious.

Katya sighs and spins her chair around before answering. “Me and my ex lived together in New York. She was an art journalist - went to the Louvre, cheated on me. I couldn’t stay there.”

Trixie pauses for a second, considering her response like it could break some sort of friendship between them. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I did. Santa Monica is nothing like New York. Why are you here?”

Trixie giggles and spins her own chair a few times. “It’s my city,” She says with a smile, remembering every time it has helped her up when she feels down, every walk on the pier or trip to the beach. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

*

The second half of the day moves faster, they get along and manage to serve everyone pretty quickly, earning enough tips to give them a generous salary. 

They close the shop together at nine pm, both exhausted from the longest day of the week. Saturdays are fifteen hours - everything else more like eight. 

“Can I take you somewhere?” Trixie asks as they switch off the lights. The sky is a milky pink like a strawberry milkshake and it backlights her in a way that makes her look like aphrodite. The effect is not lost on Katya who nods numbly, following the girl out of the shop and down the road towards the beach.

The beach is surprisingly empty but Trixie guides them both onto the pier where they sit on the end, legs dangling off, watching the way the sunset turns the sea into a pastel abyss. 

“You asked me why Santa Monica,” Trixie says, still facing out into the world. 

“Yeah.”

“This,” she gestures broadly, “this is why.”

“It’s beautiful,” Katya affirms, but she looks at Trixie.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> (leave a comment, i dare you)


End file.
